Strange, savage, swampy. Three S’s that define SLIMELORD. On March 8, 2024 the bizarre Death Metal maestros drop their debut full length album, “Chytridiomycosis Relinquished,” via 20 Buck Spin Records. It has been a long ramp up since 2019 when they formed in Leeds, England, issuing a small library of three EPs and one live album over the last five years. Surprisingly, “Chytridiomycosis Relinquished” is all new material—mighty is the band that resists re-recording previous EP tracks onto a full-length and calling it their debut.

Through some arcane magic, SLIMELORD has managed to stay as odd and heavy across their entire five years as they were when they first appeared on the scene. All seven tracks (47:42) are a trippy, albeit brutal, journey through the realms of Sludgy Death with peculiar avant-garde twists that might be called jazz or alien surrealism.

Conceptually the album “tells an adventure story that ventures deep underground to meet with fantastical beasts, through biological landscapes and back to the apocalyptic surface to confront an immense evil.” For the curious, ‘chytridiomycosis’ is a highly lethal amphibian infection “causing sporadic deaths in some amphibian populations and 100 per cent mortality in others.” Thank you, Google. Not sure what periodicals SLIMELORD has been perusing on their spare time, but there you have it. Inspiration can come from anywhere.

“Chytridiomycosis Relinquished” isn’t really an album of single tracks, but rather one ongoing narrative. Not the sort of album you want to throw on shuffle but rather listen to in one long go. Tracks that stood out the most for me were “Batrachomorpha Resurrections Chamber” for its irregular and slow shamble through the first half and then the hyper-tempo second half; and “Heroic Demise” for its epic cascades and grand melodies. Oddly it is the shortest piece of the bunch, perhaps adding to its impact.

Production values are excellent, which is hard to achieve with such a down-tuned recording, and the cover art is as weird as the music and lyrics. In total, a full package of strange. And although the band has plenty of material before this release, it does make a befitting debut. “Chytridiomycosis Relinquished” is as hard to pronounce as it is to understand, but it is worth checking out. Great to hear something so innovative in a world that has gone so mundane.